no discernible progress toward breaking the fiscal cliff stalemate. mr. obama left that drama behind and told supporters in suburban detroit the fiscal cliff is serious business. >> if congress doesn't act soon, meaning in the next few weeks, starting on january 1st, everybody's going to see their income taxes go up. >> reporter: boehner and house republicans want to preserve all the bush era tax rates due to expire at year's end, shielding everyone from a tax increase. mr. obama wants to raise them for households earning more than $250,000 a year. he has so far resisted gop demands for spending cuts to health care or education. >> i'm not going to have a situation where the wealthiest among us, including folks like me, get to keep all our tax breaks and then we're asking students to pay higher student loans. >> reporter: even so, democrats worry mr. obama might cave to republicans, their biggest fear, the president will do what he considered in 2011, raise the eligibility age for medicare, a top house democrat monday warned the white house to tread light